Qadri has given his workers ‘licence to kill’: Ahsan

LAHORE: Planning and Development Minister Ahsan Iqbal has said that Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) Chief Dr Tahirul Qadri has given his workers a “licence to kill”.Ahsan Iqbal said this while addressing a joint press conference along with Information and Broadcasting Minister Pervaiz Rashid on Monday. “Dr Qadri yesterday gave his workers a licence to kill while he also asked for the killing of his own workers who [would] step back from advancing his agenda. Even Mussolini and Hitler had not issued such open and brutal directives in their times; they had ‘death squads’, who were secretly issued such orders to kill.”Ahsan said that rigging would have taken place at some places but that on the basis of it, entire elections in the country could not be rejected. He said that all of the surveys regarding public opinion prior to the 2013 general elections had indicated that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was ahead of all other parties.Ahsan said that PTI senior leader Asad Umer felicitated PML-N for winning the polls on May 11, 2013 and gave “good news” about forming PTI government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) to the people. He said that Imran Khan was acting upon his second thought, after not gaining any success in KP for he tried to run the KP government via SMS from his Bannigala residence in Islamabad. “The PTI chairman is afraid after 14 months of his provincial government that the people will question him over his performance after five years. Imran Khan also fears that if the development projects of the PML-N government succeeded, the people will again vote it for the next five years; then how would he become a prime minister at the age of 72,” the minister added.Only for the sake of his personal ambition, Ahsan said, Imran Khan has merged his party in the PAT and made his workers frontline fighters of Dr Qadri’s bloody revolution that was aimed at spreading anarchy in the country.The information minister urged TV channels to review their policy of transmitting hate speeches. He urged the PMLN workers to demonstrate patience and remain dignified in their acts and to not get provoked under any circumstances. He described PTI Chairman Imran Khan’s allegations of vote fraud as a pack of lies.Rashid said that Khan had been taking U-turns on election issues without any evidence. “Khan has been distorting facts. Fakhruddin G Ibrahim has shown mirror to Khan by rejecting his allegations,” he said.